NEW YORK - U.S. stocks rose, extending the biggest monthly gain since February, as financial, health care and technology shares led the advance.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has added 3.6 percent in this month, poised for its best August performance since 2000. The benchmark gauge rose 0.3 percent to 2,000.01 as of 11:19 a.m. in New York. Volume was 39 percent below the 30-day average at this time of day.

Economic reports showed consumer confidence unexpectedly rose in August, while consumer spending dropped in July for the first time in six months. Euro-area inflation slowed this month to the weakest rate since 2009, increasing pressure on the European Central Bank to add stimulus. American equity markets will be closed on Sept. 1 for the Labor Day holiday.

“Investors’ lack of exposure to equities is still what drives the market higher, along with valuations which aren’t stretched,” Paul Atkinson, head of North American equities at Aberdeen Asset Management PLC in Philadelphia, said in a phone interview. The firm oversees $551.4 billion.

With the U.S. headed into the Labor Day holiday weekend, the stock market has been experiencing the slowest trading in at least six years. Volume has been below 5 billion shares in each of the past eight days, the longest stretch in data compiled by Bloomberg going back to 2008.

Consumer confidence unexpectedly rose in August, showing a brightening in Americans’ moods as the labor market gains traction. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan final sentiment index rose to 82.5 from 81.8 in July. The median projection in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 80.

In Europe, consumer prices rose 0.3 percent in August from a year earlier after a 0.4 percent increase in July, the statistics office in Luxembourg said. Unemployment remained at 11.5 percent in July, Eurostat said in a separate report. ECB President Mario Draghi said in a speech at a conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., that inflation expectations have deteriorated in the euro area and signaled policy makers are ready to add fresh stimulus.

‘Something different’

“The ECB meeting is next week and Draghi kind of precommitted at Jackson Hole when he started talking about inflation being below their desired range,” Paul Zemsky, the New York-based head of multi-asset strategies at Voya Investment Management LLC, which oversees $213 billion, said by phone. “If they don’t do something different, global markets will be disappointed.”

Avago Technologies Ltd., a semiconductor-device supplier, climbed 8.6 percent to $82.94 for the biggest gain in the S&P 500 after it reported earnings that topped estimates.

Pacific Sunwear of California Inc., a clothing retailer, slid 8.2 percent to $2.11 after projecting losses in the third quarter that were deeper than analysts’ estimated.

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